Abstract
Physical activity (PA) is important for children’s growth and development and for their current and future health. Schools, especially during physical education (PE), are important locations for children to accrue PA. The purpose of this study was to assess the PA levels of preschool children during structured PE lessons and to evaluate the impact of selected characteristics (e.g., lesson context, length, and location; teacher behavior; class size; activity area density). Trained observers used SOFIT (System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time) to assess 90 structured PE lessons taught by 25 different teachers. Intact classes (n = 5 to 6 and representing 3 different grade levels) in 4 selected preschools were observed on 4 days over a 4-week period. Overall, children engaged in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) 49.9% (SD = 15.7) of lesson time and there were differences in MVPA% among the four preschools, by lesson context, and by teacher behavior. There were no significant differences in MVPA% either between indoor (n = 69) and outdoor (n = 21) lessons or among the 3 grade levels. Even though the lessons approached the 50% MVPA guideline, the brevity of them left children far short of recommended daily amounts of PA. Future studies should investigate how preschools can increase on-campus opportunities for PA both during PE and throughout the school days.
Highlights
High rates of physical inactivity during childhood are problematic in most developed countries, and they are believed to be a direct or indirect cause of many pediatric diseases
Permission for the study was granted by the University Ethics Committee and written consent was obtained from parents of the observed children and the preschool principals
Physical activity is important for children’s growth and development; and while school physical education (PE) has been identified as an important source for its accrual (IOM, 2013), relatively few studies of physical activity during preschool PE lessons have been reported
Summary
High rates of physical inactivity during childhood are problematic in most developed countries, and they are believed to be a direct or indirect cause of many pediatric diseases. Physical activity (PA) in young children can help to improve their cardio-metabolic profile (Janssen & LeBlanc, 2010) and bone health (Janz et al, 2004), contribute to their gross motor skill and psycho-social development (Timmons, Naylor, & Pfeiffer, 2007) and help to protect against child obesity (Reilly, 2008; Waters et al, 2011). The Australian (Commonwealth of Australia, 2014) and UK (Department of Health, Physical Activity, Health Improvement and Protection, 2011) governments recommend that young children should accrue at least 3 hours of daily PA spread throughout the day. There are exceptions, especially in structured PA settings such as during preschool physical education (PE) lessons (Van Cauwenberghe, Labarque, Gubbels, De Bourdeaudhuij, & Cardon, 2012)
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